


Another Suit Ruined

by SylvanWitch



Category: White Collar
Genre: "Shot through the Heart" missing scene, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 17:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10791774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: When Neal is grazed by a bullet carefully calculated to wound him, Peter discovers that it's not the suit he wants Rebecca to pay for.





	Another Suit Ruined

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen maybe ten whole episodes of _White Collar_ in my life, but I caught two in the Rebecca-related arc recently, and I couldn't shake the idea that there was something missing from the apartment scene where Neal comes so close to death. This little scene is the result of that.

There’s a moment after all the requisite shouting, after Peter’s warned his team in the other rooms of the apartment, after his eyes have done an automatic scan of the skyline and found nothing—no telltale glint from the sun on a scope, no shadowy silhouette defiant against the skyline.

His heart rate isn’t yet back to normal, and he can tell he’s going to have adrenaline shakes when all is said and done.

But right in this moment, Peter’s not thinking about procedures or protocol or the perilous wailing of a siren already drawing near.

He’s clocking the movement of the ribs spread beneath his hand, feeling Neal’s heart through his back, feeling his heat, and, with those feelings, letting at last a rush of relief crash through him so sudden and complete that he can’t rise from his protective posture without embarrassing himself, his knees are that weak.

So they stay like that, Neal with his head down, shoulders hunched, and Peter with his hand steady on Neal’s back, and they don’t say anything at all for what must be a span of only two or three breaths but that feels like forever.

Then Ramirez is bustling in to render assistance and three agents are talking at the same time about angle of trajectory and velocity and wind speed, and Neal is rising slowly from his crouch, Peter’s hand slipping from the fine fabric of his jacket, and through the clinical examination of the bullet damage to that fabric and to the much more precious material beneath it, Peter’s heart is jackrabbiting and a metallic taste is coating the back of his tongue, and he’s swallowing against it because he hasn’t thrown up at a crime scene ever, and he’ll be damned if he does so now.

And as Neal is escorted down to the waiting ambulance—even as Peter’s cataloguing the next two dozen things he needs to know or have done— he’s recognizing that leaving isn’t as easy as getting on a plane, and letting go has nothing to do with saying goodbye, and god but he’s screwed, royally and probably forever, and he and Elle are going to have to have a talk.


End file.
